The 45th Annual Clark Rogerson Foray - Mushrooms in the House of Wisdom

Good evening, friends, and Happy Labor Day!

I spent the past weekend in Litchfield, CT at the 45th Annual Clark Rogerson Foray, hosted by the Connecticut-Westchester Mycological Association (COMA). Though I grew up in Connecticut and recently lived in Westchester, this was my first time attending the Labor Day weekend foray. I have a feeling it won’t be my last.

Hector’s tackle boxes after the foray on Saturday.

The drive down on Friday wasn’t ideal. Between torrential downpours and Labor Day traffic, I managed to turn a three and a half hour drive into five hours. Each time I’ve had to travel on a Friday this summer I’ve told myself I’ll leave really early in the morning to beat traffic, but by the time Friday morning actually rolls around I’m lucky if I’ve even packed. Shoot for the stars and land in the clouds (of exhaust from other cars).

The foray took place at the Wisdom House Retreat and Conference Center - a former Catholic convent turned retreat center. Built in the 1950s, the convent operated for twenty-five years before converting to a retreat center in 1975. All of the bathrooms still had the same fixings from the 1950s which was fun.

The architecture was a bit severe: a brick exterior that enveloped a cinderblock and drop-tile ceiling interior. Windows were at a premium. However, if you are a pig concerned about your home’s ability to withstand the huffing and puffing of a big bad wolf, you would love it.

Nothing quite like sharing a monastic cell with a stranger, whether in the name of the Lord or in the name of fungi. Fortunately, Frankie and I were great roommates and I was happy to be apart of his first ever mushroom foray.

Impressively, the quality of the food was just as solid as the structural integrity of the building. There’s no need to even qualify it with “for a retreat center”, the food was able to stand on its own.

It was served buffet style and there would be a meat option (salmon one night and Korean BBQ chicken the next) that would be accompanied by plenty of vegetarian and vegan options (noodle dishes, roast vegetables, and a salad bar). The only quirk was the food was quickly whisked away forty-five minutes after it was set out, so you had to be diligent about getting to meals on time and keep one eye on the clock if you were fixing for seconds.

On the wall in our room. This fired me up, I appreciated it.

The best part about the foray was that there were a lot of great mycologists in attendance. We were treated to presentations from noted mycologists Alan and Arleen Bessette, Rich Tehan, Rick Van de Poll, Roz Lowen, and John Plischke.

What did we find?

Now that the setting has been laid, let’s get to the walks. The irony was that after driving through torrential showers to get there, the woods were pretty dry as all those showers pushed east of Litchfield.

While we may not have had a tremendous quantity of mushrooms, we did end up with quite nice diversity. I suppose when you have over a hundred people divided across ten different forays over two days, you’re maximizing your chances. Many eyes make for many mushrooms regardless of the conditions and the total for the weekend came in at 370 species.

The first walk I went on was in Northfield Brook Lake, and a large reason why was because Rich, who I hung out with back in January, was on the walk. It didn’t matter that the large, fleshy fungi weren’t out in abundance; we spent a lot of time flipping over lots of leaves to find tiny entomopathogenic fungi. We did not leave disappointed. Without further ado, the fungi of the weekend:

Gibellula sp.

An entomopathogenic (insect-eating) fungus in the genus Gibellula. This parasitic fungus infected an orb-weaver spider (Araneidae). The white fingers erupting out of the spider are the fungal stromata, the spore-producing structures of the fungus.

A larger Gibellula sp.

Rich found this specimen on the underside of a fern. You can see more of the spider here, and there are even more stromata (they also appear slightly purple).

Erynia sp.

This mosquito-parasitizing fungus was on the underside of a mountain laurel leaf (Kalmia latifolia), and Rich ID’ed the pathogen to genus. This, however, is probably as close as it gets to an insect-parasitizing fungus that everyone can endorse.

Tatraea macrospora

I'd never seen these little cups before. Despite their diminutive size at 1 cm wide and 1 mm thick, they're known for their long spores (hence the epithet Macrospora).

Wasp’s Nest Slime (Metatrichia sp.)

Not a fungus, but an amalgamation of single-celled bacteria. This photo shows some structures on the left which have released spores (the hairy, empty wasp nests), and some on the right that are about to open (the blackberry-like structures).

Jelly Babies (Leotia sp.)

A greener than usual jelly baby, potentially a moldy Leotia lubrica.

Impossibly Small Ascomycete (something in Lachnum or Lachnellula?)

Hector found these unfathomably tiny cups growing out of the remnant stem of a decomposed leaf. Possibly an endophyte (a fungus that lived in the leaf) now sending out spores to find a new, living leaf.

Porcini (Boletus edulis complex)

It was fitting that this was the last mushroom I saw before I left on Sunday. This choice, edible porcini was growing under a spruce in the parking lot of Topsmead State Forest — well within sight of where we had just sat for lunch.

Overall, this was an outstanding foray. It was well organized in that you could go out looking for mushrooms all day and then catch all the presentations which took place in the late afternoon and evening. You didn’t have to sacrifice one for the other.

To cap off each day, the social hour after the evening presentations featured a variety of impressive dishes made by participants - whether it was Kathy Brandt’s variety of vegan cheeses, Julie O’grady’s vegan candy cap ice cream, or wild mushroom frittatas and black walnut soda from the 3foragers.

The only bummer was that I had to leave on Sunday, so I missed a couple presentations and the auction that night (although I kind of have to stay away from those auctions otherwise I come home with fourteen piece mushroom pottery kitchen sets).

A big thank you to Joe and Kathy Brandt, the folks at Wisdom House, and everyone else who helped make this weekend happen.

Rich also found a blue-foot Psilocybe (Psilocybe caerulipes), a psychoactive mushroom. Another psilocybin-containing mushroom, Pluteus americanus, was found this weekend as well.

September is another busy slate of mushroom activity. We have Menla this upcoming weekend, and my full slate of fall events are on my events page. If you happen to be in PA this weekend, there’s the Wyoming Valley Mushroom Club ‘s Wild Mushroom Fair. That’s another one I haven’t been to and would like to attend.

The only thing missing from all these mushroom events is the rain (which is actually a pretty important part). We’ve got to manifest a little rain here, folks, it’s time to start dancing,

Aubrey